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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27786277">College Kids</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/musesfool/pseuds/victoria_p'>victoria_p (musesfool)</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Batgirl (Comics), Batman (Comics)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Awkward Flirting, Even Robins, F/M, Literary References &amp; Allusions, West Wing Title Project</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-11-29</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-11-29</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-11 01:15:33</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>3,626</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27786277</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/musesfool/pseuds/victoria_p</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Jason was sitting in the back row of Professor Bauer's Twentieth Century American Novel class when Stephanie Brown hobbled in on crutches.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Stephanie Brown/Jason Todd</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>28</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>195</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>College Kids</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Written for the <a href="https://musesfool.dreamwidth.org/386778.html"><strong>West Wing title project</strong></a>. Thanks to Snacky for helping when I was stuck. &lt;3</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The more Jason thought about it, the more the idea appealed to him. He could get his GED and start classes in the spring. He didn't even need Oracle to put together an identity that would hold up to the low-level scrutiny provided by the Gotham University admissions department, and he could build his class schedule around his nighttime work. It wasn't like he had anything else going on to fill up his time.</p><p>He hesitated a bit over the name—he didn't want to give Bruce (or Willis, even if the man was dead) the satisfaction of using the name he'd given Jason, but sadly, he couldn't remember Catherine's maiden name (had he ever known it? He wasn't sure.) and he refused to use Sheila's, even if that was one name Bruce would never expect him to use.</p><p>Jason Peters matriculated in the spring, and after a rough first couple of weeks trying to balance homework and vigilante work, he <em>loved</em> it. It felt good to use his brain for things other than planning raids on mobsters and gun-runners, and to use his words for more than making threats or quips during fights.</p><p>He easily knocked out his core requirements that first semester and over the summer, spending the worst of Gotham's August heatwave holed up in the university library doing physics problems. He was still undecided about his minor—he was considering either sociology or history—but he'd jumped headlong into being an English major, the way he'd always dreamed as a stupid teenager before he died. Some things, it seemed, hadn't changed. At first he was annoyed at paying extortionate amounts of money to read things he'd already read for free, but the quality of the discussion and a couple of the professors' lectures was better than he'd anticipated, so he decided it was worth it. (The desire to rub his eventual diploma in Bruce's face was in no way a deciding factor.)</p><p>He still had to take the basic lit classes before he could move onto specifics, so he was sitting in the back row of Professor Bauer's Twentieth Century American Novel class when Stephanie Brown hobbled in on crutches.</p><p>"Sorry I'm late," she said brightly. "I didn't realize this was all the way across campus from my last class."</p><p>Professor Bauer gave her a skeptical look and indicated a seat in the front of the room. "Plan better next time."</p><p>Steph settled into the designated chair with minimal clatter and a slightly sarcastic but still cheery, "Sure thing, boss," that Jason occasionally heard on comms on the rare nights he teamed up with the other Bats.</p><p>Fuck.</p><p>He hunched a little lower in his seat, but this wasn't a lecture hall—there were thirty people in the class and he'd already heard rumblings from a couple of them that that was about ten too many and they were going to drop it.</p><p>He kept his head down for that first class, and managed to arrive before Steph for the second one, but the third time was not the charm—by the time he got there, she was already settled in the front row and blocking the aisle with her crutches.</p><p>"So," she said in that annoying, cheerful voice, tilting her head in a way that reminded him of Babs, "were you just gonna pretend not to know me the whole semester?"</p><p>"I <em>don't</em> know you," he responded, fist clenching around the strap of his backpack.</p><p>"Then this is a perfect opportunity to fix that." She tapped his shin lightly with one of her crutches, and nodded toward the seat on her right. "Cop a squat, guy I don't know, but it is Jason, right?"</p><p>He gave her a glare that caused hardened drug dealers to piss themselves, and her sunny smile just got wider. </p><p>Professor Bauer bustled in at that point, so Jason conceded defeat and grudgingly slid into the seat next to Steph.</p><p>To his surprise, she was the only person in the room aside from him not taking notes on a laptop. "No computer?" he blurted as they packed up after class is over.</p><p>She shrugged. "Even if I had one, I'd be too afraid of dropping it while I'm stuck on these." She patted the crutches. "Why don't you use one?"</p><p>"I'm faster with a pen than a keyboard." Laptops hadn't been common in school when he'd first gone, and while he wasn't on Oracle's level (or even Tim's, though he'd never admit that out loud) now, he could do his own hacking. But for note-taking purposes, he was still more comfortable with pen and paper.</p><p>She nodded. "Okay."</p><p>"Listen," he started and she held up a hand.</p><p>"I'm not gonna rat you out, though I guarantee the whole family would be thrilled to know you're here."</p><p>"Like I believe that." He didn't specify which part of that statement he didn't believe (either one, to be honest), but she seemed to think he only meant the latter half.</p><p>"Believe what you want. Doesn't make it untrue. Bruce and Alfred especially. And I do have one condition."</p><p>"I knew it."</p><p>"I need you to proofread my papers. I am not good at all this theme and metaphor business, and this is my last required core class before I can start on my major requirements. I can't afford to screw it up."</p><p>"That's it?"</p><p>"And you can buy me lunch."</p><p>"What?" He shouldn't have been so blindsided by her, but he was so unused to being treated like a normal person instead of a time bomb by any of them that it was a little hard to keep up.</p><p>"Lunch? You know, the noontime meal filled with delicious sandwiches and sugary caffeinated beverages?" She handed him her book bag and he took it without thinking, and then it was too late to hand it back—her hands were full of crutches. "Put some of those ill-gotten gains to charitable use supporting a poor college student like me." </p><p>He stared at her incredulously. "Why are you like this?"</p><p>She gave him a sharp little half-grin. "You know, he's never said it out loud, but I can tell B thinks that all the time, too."</p><p>Jason didn't bother to bite back his groan of annoyance at that. He'd have facepalmed, but his hands were full of her stuff.</p><p>They went to the cafeteria since it was closest—she was annoyed and tired of her crutches and he wasn't made of money, whatever she thought—and ordered enough food to feed two hungry vigilantes. They agreed to split two orders of fries, which she put too much ketchup on before he could veto it. (He ate them anyway.) He had a roast beef on rye and she ate the greasy cafeteria pizza. The nearly transparent slices of pepperoni seemed to float in their own individual oil slicks and the sauce was an unappetizing bright orange.</p><p>"That is so gross."</p><p>"I know. It's the worst and yet somehow, also the best. It reminds me of the terrible pizza lunches in my grade school cafeteria." She took another bite and seemed to relish it. "It was always a good time when we could afford to pay for lunch."</p><p>"Ah." He smiled nostalgically. "Chocolate pudding for me." It had been a rare, beloved treat he hadn't thought of in years.</p><p>She nodded and laughed softly. "You must have been in heaven when you had Alfred's."</p><p>"Alf's is great but it wasn't the same."</p><p>"Yeah." Steph sighed in acknowledgement, and Jason felt <em>seen</em> for the first time in a long time. </p><p>They finished their lunches in companionable silence, and after that, they ate lunch together every Tuesday and Thursday after class.</p><p>He'd never thought much of—or about—Steph. He knew she'd been Robin briefly and had faked her death after being tortured by Black Mask. </p><p>"Not fake," Cass had insisted when he'd asked. "Just brief."</p><p>Tim wasn't any more forthcoming about it, offering a terse, "It's complicated," when the subject came up.</p><p>"Oh yeah," Steph said when he asked a couple of weeks later, one dead Robin to another. "I flatlined for a couple minutes, but the doc brought me back." She looks away, sandwich forgotten in her hand. "They're all still a little angry, but it's not like <em>I</em> made the decision to fuck off to Africa without telling them I was alive. Though I suppose I didn't reach out once I knew what had happened. I was a little angry too." She gave a little nervous laugh and put her sandwich down. "B and I have never had a great relationship, and that didn't help." She shrugged a shoulder. "We're working on it."</p><p>"What?"</p><p>"Yeah, Bruce and Tim didn't think I was," she paused and took a long sip of her root beer, making the ice rattle in the cup, "up for the job." She let out another one of those nervous laughs, and then bit her lip and looked thoughtful. "I sure showed them."</p><p>"You did, though."</p><p>"What?"</p><p>"You did show them." Jason took a big bite of his turkey sub. "You're still here, and you're a," he huffed, trying to find the right words, "welcome member of the team now."</p><p>She shook her head. "It helps to have Cass and Babs on my side."  </p><p>"Yeah, I bet."</p><p>"It's easier for me, though. I was never—" She hesitated and reached out to touch his hand, her fingers warm against his skin, before she pulled back. "I was never his kid."</p><p>"I'm not—"</p><p>"I know," she said, rolling her eyes and cutting his angry screed off at the knees. "You're not the same kid you were then." She shook her head again. "None of us are." She took another sip of her soda. "You should come by the Clocktower, though. Babs would be happy to see you." She smiled. "And she really appreciates you helping me with my papers, so she doesn't have to."</p><p>Jason's face was hot, and not from anger now, and he tried to play it off as a joke. "You don't need that much help, but your grammar is atrocious. Did you learn to punctuate in a barn?"</p><p>"I like to think of grammar and punctuation as more like guidelines." She waved a hand airily.</p><p>"But the professor considers them rules," he pointed out.</p><p>"Pfft. Details."</p><p>"Important details."</p><p>"Nerd." But she said it affectionately. She wiped her mouth and hands on her napkin, gathered her belongings, and stood. She balanced easily on her good foot, of course, as she situated herself on her crutches, and made her way to his side of the table. "But I'm glad I have you to keep track of them." Her hand was firm on his shoulder and her lips were warm against his cheek, and then she was gone, and he sat alone in the Gotham U cafeteria, sure his face was as red as his helmet.</p><p>She didn't bring it up again, and Jason thought maybe he was reading too much into it, but the next time there was an Arkham breakout and they had an all Bats on deck situation, she interrupted Bruce while he was giving out assignments and said, "Hood and I will take the Bowery and Crime Alley."</p><p>Bruce's grunt was an inquisitive grunt, and Steph grinned in response. "We've got the home field advantage, B."</p><p>Bruce frowned but conceded the point with a growled, "Fine."</p><p>Jason had known he wasn't going to be allowed to track the Joker on his own, and he found he didn't want to drag Steph into that confrontation if he didn't have to, so he didn't complain (much) about the team-up. He knew she usually preferred patrolling with Red Robin or Black Bat, and he wasn't going to read into it. He hadn't worked closely with her before, but he'd always liked working with Babs, and in theory, this wasn't that different. </p><p>Steph was as quippy as Dick, and as impulsive as Jason himself, but she had an unsinkable charm all her own. She was a good detective—all of them were trained by Bruce, after all—and she was especially good at inventive weaponry, as he found out when she handed him something she called a "gooperang," which stopped Riddler in his tracks as easily as a rubber bullet would have, even if it was a little messier. </p><p>"Rough night, Ed?" she asked as she zip-tied his hands. "You off your meds again?"</p><p>Jason stared at her incredulously for a second, and when that got no response, he remembered he had his helmet on and she couldn't see his face, so he had to use his words. "What the fuck?"</p><p>"Arkham is no place for anyone with mental health issues," Riddler replied with a sigh.</p><p>"Ain't that the truth," Jason said, surprised into agreement. His own stint there had been short and nightmarish, and avoiding a repeat was one of the reasons he'd made his tentative peace with Bruce and the family. </p><p>"If you stopped escaping, maybe they'd transfer you out to someplace less corrupt," Batgirl said, not unkindly. "But you have to keep taking your meds."</p><p>Riddler hung his head. "I know."</p><p>"Okay then. I'm gonna call this one in, Hood. Meet you up top."</p><p>Jason took to the rooftops again, but they didn't see any of the other escapees for the rest of the patrol. By the end of the night, they'd all been caught, and while Jason wouldn't normally join them back at the cave for the debrief, this time when Steph suggested it, he didn't say no. He kept his helmet on, though, so no one could see his blush when Batman seemed surprised—and oddly pleased—to see him.</p><p>"Don't get used to it, old man."</p><p>Bruce's "Hn," in response was skeptical, and Jason chose to ignore it. He left before Bruce's grunts could turn into actual questions he didn't want to answer.</p><p>It was harder to avoid Babs's teasing, but he managed when she made herself known on his comms, turning aside her pointed questions with questions of his own, about Shakespeare and Marlowe and Elizabethan theater. She dropped some library books he hadn't even known to ask for onto his laptop, and he was sure his paper on revenge tragedies was going to knock his professor's socks off.</p><p>He was less sure about Steph's choice to write her final paper on Wharton's <em>House of Mirth</em>. </p><p>"It's so depressing."</p><p>Her mouth curled in an annoyed pout. "Oh, and your revenge tragedies are so light and fun."</p><p>"At least someone gets to get even for the slights against them. Lily dies alone and destitute. Any one of the people in her life could have helped her but they were all—"</p><p>"Too caught up in their own personal dramas to try." Steph sighed and pulled her hair out of her ponytail before tying it up again in a messy bun. "A little on the nose, for sure, but I <em>get</em> Lily Bart, and how she kept digging herself in deeper when all she really wanted to do was find a place where she belonged, in a world that would only allow her a very narrow place at all, and she was too blinkered to see beyond that."</p><p>He didn't know how to respond to that. As far as he could see, Steph <em>did</em> belong, in both the cave and the manor, in a way he didn't anymore, though it was harder these days to convince himself or anyone else that he didn't <em>want</em> to.</p><p>"Speaking of on the nose," she said, breaking into his reverie, "you're doing <em>Gatsby</em>, huh?"</p><p>"What do you mean? It's a great book." Jason already had three pages of notes on the intersection of classism and materialism in the book, and he was just getting started. He was going to write a barnburner of a paper.</p><p>"I don't disagree, but come on, Jay, you don't see the parallels?"</p><p>He shook his head vehemently. He was no Gatsby, despite the coincidence of their names, and Steph was worth a hundred Daisy Buchanans.</p><p>"You, Bruce, the green light on the dock? Your inability to let the past go?"</p><p>He had to work to keep his voice down, since they were in the library. "I—No. Fuck you, Steph." His face was hot and he started shoving his stuff into his backpack. He didn't have to sit here and listen to this shit. He was the goddamn Red Hood. Maybe the whole idea of college—and this relationship with Steph—had been a stupid dream, a joke on him, just like everything else in his life.</p><p>She reached out and wrapped her fingers around his, no hesitation this time. "Hey, hey, I get it. I mean, not exactly, but close enough. I died and failed him too, and he's never let me forget it. I wanted his approval so badly, but he was never my father."</p><p>He looked down at their joined hands, knuckles scarred and fingers callused in the same ways, hardly daring to breathe. He didn't want to scare her off. </p><p>People didn't touch him casually anymore, and the memory of Bruce's one-armed hugs or Alfred's approving shoulder squeezes was misty and faint, from another life long gone. These days, he was either punching or being punched, and the soft warmth of Steph's hand on his seemed to burn through his entire body. <em>What the fuck.</em> He took a breath and counted to four before he let it out, willing his hand not to shake under the touch, though he couldn't have said anymore if it was anger or fear or something else knocking him for a loop.</p><p>"Come on," she said. "Let me buy you a drink." She gave his hand a squeeze, let go long enough to pack her own bag, and then took it again, twining their fingers together as if they held hands all the time. He had to fight not to cling too tight, and forced himself not to worry about whether his palm was sweaty and gross against hers. She didn't let go, so he took that as a win, and tried to imprint the sensation on his memory, so he could take it out and examine later, when she was gone and he was alone. </p><p>She led him to the food cart by the hockey rink, and bought him a Zesti and a chili dog with cheese and onions. It was cold out, but warmer in the sun, which was surprisingly bright for Gotham in November, and they sat on a nearby bench to eat. She finished her hot dog in three quick, neat bites, but he took his time, savoring the flavors of his favorite meal—how had she even known?—and trying not to get any of it on his jacket.</p><p>Steph sipped her Soder and said, "B didn't talk much about you—"</p><p>Jason snorted, unsurprised. "And when he did, I bet it was all, 'here's a cautionary tale: don't be like the dead Robin. He was a reckless failure.'" He lowered his voice into an impeccable impression of Bruce's Bat-growl.</p><p>Steph shook her head. "No. I mean, yes, he used to compare me to you." She glanced down, suddenly shy. "I wanted to be like you. And Tim and Dick, but also you." She looked up again and smiled nostalgically. "But that wasn't all. Sometimes he'd talk about what a great kid you were, and how you loved to read and write stories, and how good you were in school. It was easy to see how much he loved and missed you. Even after you came back. You should go home more. Then I think you could both move forward."</p><p>Jason made himself finish eating before he spoke, thinking about what she said instead of just reacting to it. It sounded like the truth, and not just because he wanted to believe it. He took a long sip of Zesti, thumped his fist on his sternum, and let out a truly prodigious burp, which made Steph's nose scrunch up in disgust even as she laughed. He tossed the can into a nearby recycling bin and tried to wipe the grease off his hands with a tiny, flimsy napkin that was nowhere near up to the task, before giving it up as a lost cause and scrubbing his hands on his jeans. </p><p>Then he looked up and met her gaze squarely. "Miss Brown, your exegesis is flawed, but compelling."</p><p>She nodded, mouth quirking in a half-grin. "I can accept that, Professor Todd."</p><p>He reached out and took her hand, unhesitating, the way she had taken his. He was still impulsive—even death hadn't beaten it completely out of him—and now he wanted to be brave, to take the leap without knowing where he'd land first, to make an overture and not have it be rejected (even if his breath smelled like chili and onions). He wanted to know what it meant to listen for a tuning fork that had been struck upon a star, to kiss a girl he liked because he liked her and hoped she liked him back. To experience life as more than just tragedy and revenge. To be a part of something larger than himself.</p><p>He tugged her close and pressed a kiss to her lips. </p><p>She gasped and pulled back a little, searching for something in his expression. She must not have found it, because she asked, "Are you sure?"</p><p>He laughed and cupped her warm, flushed cheek in his free hand. "No," he replied, kissing her again and then speaking against her lips, "but I want to find out."</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>"a tuning fork struck upon a star" is a paraphrase of what Gatsby thinks just before the first time he kisses Daisy.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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